Back from the Dead
by Soldeed
Summary: When a military expedition is swallowed up without trace on an uninhabited planet, the Doctor must find the cause before it is too late. But is there anyone he can trust to help him?
1. Chapter 1

**BACK FROM THE DEAD**

Author's note: This is going back a few years, but I found myself seized with a desire to write a fresh episode following on from my original 5-story saga based on Scream of the Shalka (still available on this site). For those who don't know, it features the BBCi 9th Doctor as portrayed by Richard E Grant, and we find the Doctor and new companion Alison accompanied by old enemy the Master, confined to a robotic body...

* * * * *

CHAPTER 1

_"So, Doctor, you have walked directly into my trap, just as I knew you would. Now you will pay the price for your carelessness."_

_"But your trap's not sprung yet, is it? You never learn. Always go for the gloat instead of the kill."_

_"Forgive me if I choose to savour the moment. The sight of your helpless figure cowering at my mercy is too sweet to be swiftly dispatched."_

_"I am not cowering, I'm standing. Do your worst, and we'll see who laughs last."_

_"Very well, then. Farewell, Doctor. Your imprisonment will be... for all eternity!"_

_The Master cranked the little handle on the Mousetrap board and watched eagerly as the ball was sent on its way, rattling down the steps and along the pipe to bump into the scaffolding and dislodge a second, heavier, ball which plummeted through the bath with a hole in it and down onto the diving board. The Master's eyes gleamed as the little man was hurled into the air to plunge squarely into the tub, the jolt sending a cage rattling down its pole towards the defenceless form of the Doctor's mouse-shaped plastic counter..._

_The cage halted halfway down, caught awkwardly on one of the pole's spines, and teetered precariously a matter of inches from its intended victim. The Master knuckled his fists together, raven's-wing eyebrows bristling in frustration._

_"Aha! Looks like you spoke too soon, doesn't it?" the Doctor exulted. "Seems I'll be meddling in your plans for just a little bit longer."_

_"Curses," the Master responded levelly. "Next time, Doctor, you will not be so fortunate."_

_They both chortled like schoolboys. Alison, her own mouse still safely a dozen squares from the caging area, eyed them disapprovingly and shook her head._

_"You two have been so weird since you started getting along."_

* * * * *

Elsewhere, twin moons glowed down through a fine mist of cloud onto a fantastic landscape of polished silver-grey rock, its twisting spires, gullies and arches forming a macabre jungle of writhing stone. Strange tricks of light and shadow stretched the unearthly looming shapes into something beyond reality. Grasping claws and groaning faces emerged from the earth, darkness pooling like something tangible in their crevices as what remained of the day's warmth drained away and mist gathered in the chill night air. Windless, the darkened landscape lay in silence and slept.

A heavy black boot slammed down on stone with a gritty crunch. Its owner crouched low, plasma rifle clutched in both hands, staring ahead through the mirrored visor of his helmet.

"I have visual contact. Still no comm response."

Across the expanse of dark wet grassy vegetation ahead, between the towering corkscrew-shaped masses of stone which obscured the view, he could see a circuit, four hundred feet across, of gleaming steel posts driven deep into the ground, each one surmounted by a glowing red light. If he had not known what it was, the faint shimmering effect which stretched between them like a taut, shining membrane could have been the product of tired eyes or a damp visor.

"Force wall is still up," he added into his helmet mike. "No sign of breaches."

With a sound like a small avalanche thirty more armed men came trampling up from cover to join him. Each one was identically garbed in a thickly padded black uniform, not an inch of flesh visible under their helmets and thick gloves. The bulky harnesses of personal force-shields weighed them down and made them stumble as they struggled across the slippery ground. The ugly brown metal slab of their landing craft faded into the half-light amongst the rocks behind them.

One was marked out from the rest solely by a flash of red on his shoulder. He gave a curt nod.

"Try the comm one more time."

"Yes, Sergeant."

He flicked a control on his wrist pad and spoke with clear precision into the mike:

"Spearhead Three, this is Ranger Platoon Seven calling Spearhead Three, please acknowledge."

Every man crouched motionless, alert for the faintest sound or movement. The faint hiss of their helmet speakers merely accentuated the silence.

"All right." The sergeant made a sharp forward motion with one hand. "We're going in. Force shields to maximum."

Each man twisted a dial on his harness, the hum of power rising sharply in pitch, and they hustled forward, heads low, weapons ready, to the force wall. From here they could see through its shimmering distortion the spearhead encampment laid out beyond, a neat square of collapsible steel and plastic huts, kept safe within the boundary. The two forty-foot gun towers stood empty, the muzzles of the heavy disruptor cannon drooping forlornly towards the ground.

The sergeant drew a coded key from his tunic pouch and deactivated the nearest projection post at the click of a switch. His men flooded in through the gap which opened in the force wall and fanned out across the enclosure even as he resealed the barrier behind them. The gun towers were quickly searched and manned. Other men moved fast around the perimeter. Most moved dead ahead and penetrated the cluster of huts at the centre of the camp, kicking open door after door, trigger fingers constantly tense and twitching in apprehension at what they might find.

No one called out to say they had found a thing. Flanked by two men, the sergeant marched ahead directly through the huts and into the slowly rising stretch of open muddy ground on the far side. His confident, commanding, heavy-booted stride came to a faltering halt at the sight which lay spread out before him.

Laid out in neat rows like faceless soldiers at attention on parade stood rank upon rank of simple crosses fashioned from steel tubing, each one standing in its own freshly-turned six foot plot of earth. The sergeant and the men at his back stood frozen. They stared at the graveyard and it seemed to stare mournfully back at them, its pathos all the greater for the military precision of its layout, when set against the human frailty to which it bore testament.

An unknowable span of time passed in silence before a fresh voice cut across them.

"Sarge..."

The soldier running up from the huts halted in mid-stride and stood alongside them transfixed by the sight. Reminded of his duty, the sergeant tore his eyes away and looked around.

"Speak up, lad."

"We... we found something in the barracks square, sergeant. We think it's alien."

* * * * *

In a small patch of open ground alongside the camp's mess hut there stood a shabby old eight foot high blue box with strange lettering across the top. The door popped open and Alison's cautious face popped out. She sniffed the chill, damp air and eyed the mist swimming about her booted feet with distaste.

"Doctor?" she called back into the interior. "I'm pretty certain this isn't Egypt."

"Are you sure?" came the response. "It can get quite cold at night, and..."

He fell quiet as he appeared alongside her in the doorway and took in the gloomy scene, nostrils pinched with annoyance.

"Hmf. I think the heptognomic coordinator may need recalibrating."

"I told you so," came the Master's voice, rich with self-satisfaction, from somewhere out of sight.

"Quiet, you." He glanced down at Alison. "And you."

"I didn't say anything!"

"Stop thinking it."

He slipped past her and walked out into the open ground, inspecting the military huts with an inquisitorial air.

"You're kidding, right?" she called after him. "You want to go out and explore this place that looks like the inside of Salvador Dali's head?"

"Can't hurt to take a little look around."

"I'm going to have that carved on your tombstone!"

But he was already circling round out of sight behind the TARDIS and there was nothing for it but to suck in a sour breath of this planet's unwholesome air and hurry after him.

Do you know where we are?" she asked, falling into step alongside him.

"Well..." He leaned his head back almost to ninety degrees and admired the sky. "You'll have noticed the two moons. Also the slight reddish tint to the stars, that's caused by iron-rich particulates in the troposphere which..."

He came to a halt with a crunch of his shoes against the gravelly earth. Twelve heavily armed and armoured troopers levelled weapons with perfect synchronicity and safety catches were snapped back with a chunky click.

The Doctor looked down the assembled gun muzzles with a scornful twist to his mouth.

"Oh, super. The military."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sitting on an equipment locker, feet swinging in mid-air, Alison sat alongside the Doctor and shared his contemplation of the rows of moonlit crosses in the makeshift graveyard stretching to the force barrier. The sergeant clumped heavily up to them, boots thudding on the hard packed mud.

"Drink?" he offered, holding out a canteen.

He had removed his helmet, revealing a large square head with small eyes, thick lips and a flat nose, which gave the impression that he had been wearing that helmet for so long that his head had somehow moulded itself to the interior. His skin was pink and shiny with perspiration and his relief at being able to breathe freely was palpable. He'd told them that his name was Wolff.

"Sorry if we gave you a scare," he said with gruffly deliberate courtesy. "We weren't expecting civilians, not with Telaxian raiders about. Your passenger carrier shouldn't have been passing through this sector."

"Now, that's exactly what I said!" the Doctor spoke up. "Didn't I say so, Alison? Didn't I tell the captain? I told with him to take the longer, safer way round, I pleaded with him. But he just pounded his steel hand on the table top, glared at me with his glowing mechanical eye, and bellowed that he'd have no squealing milksops aboard his boat."

Alison resisted the urge to cover her eyes with her hand. She knew that the Doctor liked gullible people, and would not be dissuaded from finding out just how far he could push them.

"Yes, Doctor," she murmured. "I remember you telling him."

Sergeant Wolff nodded, swallowing it so far.

"He picked a bad time. We have to secure this planet before the Telaxians get their hands on it."

"Oh?" Alison showed polite interest. "What's special about it?"

Wolff gave her a blank look, the simple question having evidently caught him quite unawares, and out of the corner of her eye she was conscious of the Doctor allowing himself a private little smile.

"Come on Alison," he reproached her, poker-faced. "It doesn't have to be special. If Earth doesn't get it, Telaxia might! Wouldn't that be awful?"

Realising she was missing something, Alison quietened down and gave the two of them space to sort it out between themselves. Wolff looked thoughtful, as though feeling around for a reply he'd been sure he knew, only to realise that he'd forgotten it.

"Er... It's a strategic point. A tactical fulcrum. It commands the hyperspatial crosslinks between... um..." He brightened, moving onto surer ground. "We get dug in good and deep, set up missile silos, anti-bombardment screens, when the Telaxians get here..."

There was a smile on the Doctor's lips, but none in his voice, when he interrupted.

"When the Telaxians get here it'll be a bloodbath. The whole planet will be blasted to a dead rock. Nothing on the surface will survive, but a few of you might, crouched down in your deepest bunkers, hands wrapped over your heads, and that'll be a victory! Won't that be magnificent?"

Alison grimaced, uncomfortable at the bitter light in the Doctor's eyes and the quickening of his voice as he foretold the coming catastrophe.

"Just think, a whole planet of smoking, sterile black rock. It'll be the tombstone of most of your friends, but for a few of you it will be a glorious monument to your triumph. You'll have won, because you'll have a lifeless ball of mud and the Telaxians will have nothing. How does that inspirational speech go?"

He sat back on the equipment locker and rocked his head back thoughtfully.

"We go to gain a little patch of ground, that hath in it no profit but the name."

"Huh?"

Wolff looked blank and the Doctor continued talking:

"Fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain."

He smiled coldly, then seemed to shake himself awake as if from a dream.

"I know where we are now! This is Lymnis! Did you know this is the only planet in the galaxy where you can see mammalian sky whales? They're born in the air, they eat, sleep and breed there all their lives, riding the winds, kept aloft by gas-filled bladders. Fascinating, beautiful, peaceful creatures. Of course, they'll be the first to be wiped out when the war starts."

He shrugged as if this was a matter of small consequence to him and fell silent. Several moments passed uncertainly before Alison, finding to her annoyance that this seemed to have become her assigned task, made the effort to speak up.

"And this?" She gestured at the sad rows of crosses in the mud. "The Telik... the Te... the aliens did this?"

Wolff spent another second eyeing the Doctor suspiciously before turning to face her.

"No one knows what happened here. It's one of our fortified advance posts, supposed to mark out the territory for the main landings. Garrison of sixty troops. First few days they had no trouble, next thing... silence. No alarms, no warnings, they just stopped communicating. So my platoon gets dropped in to check..." He shrugged, jerking his head at the graves. "This is what we found."

Several moments passed while the Doctor, oblivious to the uncomfortable silence, ran his sharp blue eyes over the gravestones and stroked his chin. Alison spoke quickly when she glimpsed the upwards quirk at the corner of his mouth and feared he was going to smile.

"So, um, what are you going to do now?"

"We're waiting for orders," Wolff replied without hesitation. Now the Doctor smiled.

"Well, of course. What else would you be doing?"

One razorblade eyebrow quirked up at the soldier, who stared back fishily, uncertain whether he was being mocked. To Alison's relief, a voice from one of the troopers broke across them.

"Sergeant! We found the commander's log book."

Wolff looked as relieved as Alison at the chance to break off the conversation.

"I'll be right there."

He gave the Doctor and Alison a curt little nod and marched off. The Doctor looked away and appeared to forget his existence very swiftly.

"You know, you don't have to tease him," Alison scolded in a low voice.

The Doctor shrugged.

"Probably not. But it's the military mind. That heavy-booted lack of imagination always puts me in a bad mood."

She threw a glance at the gap between two huts into which Wolff had disappeared.

"So, you want to go and see what they found?"

He dismissed the idea with a wave of one hand.

No point. If there'd been time to put anything in the commander's log there'd have been time to get in touch with the main fleet." He turned his gaze avidly straight ahead once more and pushed himself forward off the crate.. "I'm far more interested in this graveyard."

Alison looked out at the crosses driven into the mud, outside the comforting glow of electric light which bathed the huts, the mist coiling up around them from the stony pits and hollows which broke the landscape. She rolled her eyes.

"You would be."

He glanced round at her, his look of vague surprise and disappointment obviously quite genuine.

"Don't you want to come?"

"And explore a mysterious graveyard in the middle of the night? No."

"Tssch." He gave her a sniffy look of disdain. "You know, I've had companions who could barely be dissuaded from plunging ahead into the first murky cave they came across."

He stalked off too quickly to see the face Alison made at his back, or the reluctant smile which irrepressibly followed it. It was at times like this, however annoying, that she could only think of the cold, defeated, lifeless man she had first met, and of the wild spirit which had flared back in him since then. It warmed her to think that it was at least in part down to her.

She was drawing breath for a noisily exasperated snort, to get his attention and to let him know she was following him after all, when her eye was drawn to a flicker of movement at the very edge of her field of vison. Just a hair's breadth quiver of one of the tubular steel crosses which she might have written off to a freak eddy of wind. But once her eyes were drawn to it she saw it shift again, and twist, and start to sink inch by inch into the black, damp earth.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

With a high-pitched yelp of alarm Alison twisted away and toppled backwards off the crate, booted feet flying skywards. A thunder of footsteps swarmed in at her from all sides, but first at her side was the Doctor, his coat swirling over her like a protective wing. His hand snapped painfully about her wrist and his voice rapped out sharply:

"Alison! What happened? Are you all right?"

She pointed wildly with her free hand and gabbled out:

"The gravestone! The gravestone! It's moving!"

There were half a dozen troopers grouped nervously about them, weapons clutched in tightly-strung fingers, and they all whirled round defensively to look where she was pointing. The Doctor, his grip on her wrist easing a little, pulled her up to her feet.

The graveyard was quiet and still, the crosses shimmering palely in the moonlight. Everybody stood motionless for a few seconds, poised for something to happen. The tension unwound inch by inch.

"All right, lads." Sergeant Wolff's voice cut across them, heavy with condescension. "False alarm."

The soldiers straightened, weapons hanging slack at their hips, and threw accusing little glances at her. Alison scowled back at them.

"It did move! I know what I saw."

Wolff turned to the Doctor.

"Maybe you should take your young friend inside, sir. It's understandable if she's getting jumpy but we can't have false alarms going up while we're still securing the base."

There was menace in Alison's slow inhalation of air through her nostrils.

"Listen, you..."

"Er, yes, excellent suggestion." The Doctor's hand touched her lightly between the shoulder-blades. "Come on Alison, let's go and investigate the coffee-making facilities, shall we? Making these gentlemen a nice hot drink is just the thing to calm you down."

She gaped at him, too stunned to retaliate.

"Doctor?"

"Come on." His voice sharpened. "You're embarrassing yourself, and me. Let's get you indoors."

Wide-eyed with disbelief at the betrayal, cheeks hot with fury and embarassment, she allowed herself to be led past one patronisingly smiling soldier after another and into the partial shelter of the gap between two huts. Glaring, she stood stiff as a statue while the Doctor glanced warily around to see that they were not overheard. Then he leaned over to speak softly into her ear:

"Which cross was it?"

Her head snapped round to stare at him.

"You believe me?"

He looked back at her blankly.

"Why would I not believe you?"

She exhaled, surprising herself with the depth of her relief, and he bobbed his head in a vaguely apologetic acceptance of blame.

"Yes, well. The truth is I want us to keep our observations to ourselves for the moment. Tell me, did you count the crosses?"

Alison drew back incredulously.

"Count the crosses? Why would I want to..."

She eyed his serious expression for a moment and frowned.

"Why, how many are there?"

With a sweep of his arm he indicated the patch of dirt and its grim array of graves, still visible in the gap between the huts.

"See for yourself. Incidentally, did you note how many troops the sergeant said were originally sent out here?"

She answered him with only half her attention, already engaged in scanning the crosses with her eyes. There were six rows of... of...

"Um... sixty," she said. "He said sixty."

"Correct. And there are..."

Six rows of... six rows of... of twelve.

Twelve?

"Seventy-two," she murmured. "Seventy-two graves."

He leaned in behind her with a smile in his voice.

"Intriguing, isn't it?"

She looked round at his sharp, pale features as his meaning shivered through her.

"Then... then what's in the other ones? It could be anything! We have to tell the sergeant!"

The Doctor grimaced up at the sky, pushing his hands down into his pockets.

"That's a sticky point."

"Sticky? What's sticky about it? We have to warn them, people could get killed!"

"People _are_ going to get killed, Alison. It's a war."

She stared at him. She'd got used to the fact that the Doctor didn't exactly wear his compassion on his sleeve, but this...

"What, so a few more doesn't make any difference?"

He shook his head impatiently.

"That's not the point. Listen for a minute. The truth is, the Telaxian War wasn't one of the more salutary periods in your planet's history."

Alison tensed as she always did when the Doctor belittled her planet. Usually, though, she knew he was just teasing her. This time, there was none of the arch manner which he adopted when he thought he was being funny. His eyes dark with unhappy recollection, he spoke as though the words themselves carried a sour taste.

"The Third Dalek War was a catastrophe. Not just for the millions of lives lost but for what it did to your people. I visited Earth at that time, I barely recognised it. Art, nature, justice, freedom... all forgotten when survival was the only thing that counted. Every thought, every fibre of effort, had been thrown into creating machines of war. The planet was a concrete and metal fist of grinding, smoke-belching factories running twenty-four hours a day. The air was a choking toxic fog. The people were barely individuals any more... just grey-faced automata working themselves to exhaustion and shuffling out to collapse in their sleeping pods at the end of their shifts. When the war finally ended and the bodies were counted, the mindset that the strength to fight and win was all that mattered didn't evaporate overnight. It was as if humanity decided that to survive against the Daleks you had to be like them. That's how the great Terran Empire began. It was all about fear, and the obsessive need to be strong enough to win next time."

Alison listened silently, still wary but sensing the inevitability of where this was going.

"The truth is, there was no need for war with the Telaxians. Not that they had any bragging rights in the peace and concord stakes themselves, but Earth was seeding colonies on worthless uninhabited planets the Telaxians had claimed years before. For no reason except to score points in a galactic game of numbers and boast to the people back home about another triumphant expansion of the frontier. The point I'm making is, if we've stumbled onto some Telaxian stratagem in this futile bloodletting, we've no business working against them because they're not the aggressors here."

"And these guys?" said Alison, waving an arm at the camp around them. "The ones who could end up dead if we don't warn them?"

"Are probably quite decent, well-intentioned men," the Doctor replied quietly. "But so are the Telaxian soldiers working against them. That's wars for you. That's why it's a bad idea to start them."

Alison scowled, the primal instinct to warn of impending danger digging in its heels against the possibility that the Doctor might be right. Sergeant Wolff's voice broke in across them:

"Ah, there you are. Feeling better? How's that coffee coming?"

The Doctor whirled round to face him, ocean-blue eyes glaring from his full imperious height.

"What do you think this is, the middle ages? Get your own coffee."

* * * * *

At the same moment, Private Jak Sanderline was alone in a dark, shadowy spot behind the huts, checking the readings on the fort's tiny but powerful antimatter reactor. Heavily shielded and sunk deep into the earth, for safety's sake it was kept away from the sleeping quarters and beamed power invisibly through the air to the perimeter, to the huts, to the gun towers. Like everything else, like the disruptor cannon, like the force barrier, like the huts and the food and the drink and the spare boots, it was untouched and running perfectly. He frowned and shook his head but got on with the task, shutting out the looming question of why. He ran through his list of checks mechanically, pencil-thin torch held in his teeth while he noted the results on a datapad. Engrossed, he had no notion that anything was amiss until a hand quite unhurriedly grasped the back of his neck.

The one thought he had time for, before his vertebrae twisted and snapped like rotten wood and darkness burst before his eyes, was that the hand was cold. Colder than it should be. Colder than death.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The news spread around the camp like something contagious.

"Sanderline... dead... Sanderline's dead... neck broken... right there by the reactor... Sanderline... eyes wide open... not a sound..."

The Doctor watched the soldiers rush past him, his posture stiff as iron, his face like cold granite, not shifting even when he was jostled by a hurrying man's shoulder. Alison stood and watched him in silence once they were alone again. He didn't look around at her.

"Stop thinking that," he said at last.

For a moment she wondered what was going on beneath his thin, rigidly set features, and whether he felt as sick inside as she did. But her frustration wouldn't be denied.

"We should have told them!" she burst out. "We should have told them about the graves, that man might still be alive."

"All right, that's enough," he muttered.

She glared at him, suffocated by the tangle of emotions rising inside her. She swallowed them down and spoke more levelly.

"We'll tell them now, right?"

"No."

He said it so quietly it was as if he was hoping she wouldn't hear. Her voice rose furiously.

"You don't mean that? What, are you just going to hang around and watch the next one get killed? And the one after that?"

"I think we've had this discussion," he muttered.

"So we'll have it again!"

She glared at him as he turned his face away, hiding his expression in the shadows.

"You know what I think?" she went on. "I think any other day you'd be leaping in to help. I think you've decided these guys deserve to get murdered. I think you're just sulking about your damn sky whales."

He stiffened and rounded on her, his eyes flaring wide.

"Yes, no doubt I am! And about the sand serpents and the crawling rock sloths and the horned behemoths. All of the wonders of this planet, millions of years to create and a few days to destroy, and for what? For a fresh battlefield. For a new spot where two races can slaughter each other to no good purpose. Oh, you're probably right. On another day I might be leaping into the midst of this, and I would be wrong!"

"I'm telling them!" Tears started in her eyes. "You want to sit back and let those men die, I won't let you. I'm telling them."

"Oh, excellent," he snapped. "I'm so glad I confided in you."

He kicked futilely at the ground and turned his back on her, shoulders hunched. When he spoke again, it was softer, with a hoarseness to his voice.

"I'm just... trying to do what's right, Alison."

His head fell forward and he whispered bitterly:

"I used to be so good at this."

Try as she might to keep hold of her anger, Alison felt it slipping away like water through her fingers and she could find nothing to say. The Doctor made a perfunctory gesture towards the spot behind the huts where the soldiers had congregated around their fallen comrade.

"Come on. We might as well see what's happening."

But they had only drawn close enough to see one of Sanderline's motionless boots protruding from the ring of men clustered about his body when a high-pitched blast of sound swept across the camp and a glaring white light shone dazzlingly down upon them. The Doctor looked up, shading his eyes with his hand.

"Now what?"

The shape blotting out the stars around the light resolved itself into a sleek silver craft fifty feet long and shaped like an arrowhead, which circled the camp once, banking smoothly and hanging in the air as though weightless. The searchlight in its belly swept the ground like a great glowing eye until it seemed to find what it sought and agilely dropped earthwards within the perimeter barrier just yards from the huts. It sprouted an insectoid cluster of legs and came to rest in a flying cloud of noise and dust.

"Great." Sergeant Wolff stomped forward, eyes on the gleaming ship and jaw set grimly. "All right, lads, best behaviour."

The ship's hull split open to let down a ramp and a gleaming white illumination poured out into the night. Six armed men, their armour streamlined and polished, not bulky and dull like that of the troopers, marched down into the open and in their wake walked a single unarmed man. Young, slim and tanned, with sandy brown hair ruffling back in the breeze and a smile which flashed a glimpse of perfect white teeth. He moved briskly in light, flexible boots, his sharply-cut brown uniform well tailored to his trim, well-exercised body. He glanced round to get his bearings, brightened to see the troopers assembled by the huts, and quickened his pace towards them.

"Good evening!" he said loudly, striding forward. "I hear you've been having some difficulties. Don't worry, I'm here to set things straight."

"Yes, Sir." The sergeant stepped forward to meet him, face held rigidly expressionless. "Good to have you here."

"No doubt," the new arrival remarked with a thinning of his smile, circling round him without a second glance and continuing on. He walked directly into the midst of the soldiers without slowing down, correctly assuming that they would fall aside to make way for him. He glanced down at Private Sanderline's crumpled body.

"Ah. Sad."

He looked up.

"Now then... I take it there was no forced entry into the camp?"

"All the perimeter posts were running on full power," said the sergeant, stolidly trailing after him. "Nothing came in or out."

"Fine." With a dazzling smile he turned on the Doctor and Alison. "And these must be the mysterious travellers who so inexplicably showed up a short time before the tragic event!"

"The Doctor..." Wolff mumbled, "... Alison Cheney."

"Glad to know you!" The man grasped the Doctor's hand where it hung loosely by his side and shook it vigorously, then turned to Alison. "And may I say how charming it is to come across such unexpected beauty in this gloomy place?"

Alison looked at him suspiciously, uncertain at first whether to roll her eyes at the weak line or draw back defensively from whatever spiteful follow-up he might be preparing. But all she saw in the man's bright, lively, humourous eyes was a friendly intensity which said to her that he wanted to know all about her to the exclusion of everything else. If there was some mockery there, it seemed pointed at himself and the absurdity of their situation, and the fact that everyone had to call him "Sir", and that there were a few formalities to get out of the way before they could all relax as friends. He was like a different species from the troopers: chatty where they were stoic, glowing with health where their skin was pale and flabby. She let him clasp her hand between both of his and found that she was smiling back.

"Let me introduce myself," he continued. "I'm Major Sen Kallon. I'm the brigade's morale officer."

"Morale officer?" she repeated teasingly. "What, you're in charge of organising the concert parties and such?"

She felt the Doctor's hand fall lightly on her shoulder and heard his quiet voice at her ear:

"No, Alison, he's in charge of organising the execution of soldiers suspected of a lack of enthusiasm."

Alison withdrew her hand.

"Oh," she said softly.

Kallon's smile lost none of its gleam.

"Sometimes soldiers need a little encouragement. A little boost to their courage. Isn't that right, Sergeant?"

"Yes, SIR!" said Wolff, too loudly.

"Exactly. Now then..." He looked back at the Doctor, his chiseled features quickening with interest. "I hear you managed to land dead in the middle of this encampment in an escape capsule which you piloted down from a passenger freighter which shouldn't have been there. Remarkable."

"The photocosmic solar ripple effect helped, obviously," the Doctor replied, unblinking.

Kallon eyed him for a second in contemplative silence.

"Obviously. Well, let's go and take a look at this machine of yours, shall we?"

Everyone apart from the trooper who'd been delegated to stay with Sanderline's body filed through the narrow gap between huts and into the central courtyard. Kallon took one look at the TARDIS and smiled, shaking his head.

"Right. Slight problem. That's not an escape capsule, it looks nothing like one. What is it, Doctor?"

He turned to face the Doctor who stood with his arms folded and a familiar expression of arch contempt, no trace of unease in his pale features.

"What is it?" Kallon repeated, his smile retracting just a little.

"I wouldn't expect you to recognise it," the Doctor said, with such calm fluency that Alison herself almost believed him. "It's a Mark Twelve Peters and Lee Personnel Preservation Cubicle. They weren't a commercial success because of the unprepossessing appearance and the company's been out of business for fifteen years now. I was amazed to find one in the hold of our freighter, but they're actually far more stable than the more conventional brands. It used to top the consumer society best buy lists all the time, but it just goes to show that when choosing between quality and appearances, people will go for appearances every time. Don't you agree?"

He gave Kallon a thin little smile and the two of them stood for a moment as if contesting who would be the first to blink. Then Kallon looked away to the sergeant as if nothing had happened.

"You've checked their credentials?"

"Uh..." The sergeant's pale, square features tightened nervously. "Well, they're obviously not Telaxians."

Kallon grinned broadly, rolling his head back as if for a laugh that didn't come.

"Marvellous. Excellent work."

He spread his arms.

"Let's adjourn to the mess hut, shall we? I'm sure we've all had enough of the cold and the damp. Did someone mention coffee?"

He didn't move while everyone else flocked towards the largest of the steel and plastic huts. He turned to the nearest of his six bodyguards, laid a hand on his arm, and leaned forward confidingly:

"You and three of the others, fetch what you need from the ship, and get this thing open. I want to know what's inside, all right?"

"Sir."

Kallon gave him a clap on the shoulder and headed for the mess hut, flanked by his remaining two guards.

* * * * *

The ever-present moisture hanging in the air had thickened till it was almost rain when the four men got back to the TARDIS with a fusion drill to begin work. They faced two surprises. First, the cutter seemed to make no impression on the rough material of the machine's door. Second, after a few moments the door swung invitingly open as if of its own accord.

They stood back, weapons ready, but when no obvious threat emerged they shuffled forward into an interior which, mysteriously, offered plenty of room for all of them. They emerged dazzled into a gleaming chamber of white light and sparkling glass, instrument panels humming with a depth of power which could be felt quivering beneath their boots.

At its centre, a black-garbed figure stood with its back to them, its stillness somehow beyond what was natural. A gloved hand pushed a switch with one finger, causing the doors to swing shut unnoticed behind them. The Master turned, linking his hands behind his back, and gave them a formal little inclination of his head while his eyes gleamed with a deep, dark light.

"Gentlemen. Welcome."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The bodyguards move like a well-tuned machine, weapons snapping up to the aim, poised to unleash high-energy death at the Master should he make the slightest move.

He didn't. He stood without so much as blinking for longer than should have been possible. Only the slow movement of his smile showed he was not a statue.

"Raise your hands!" The leader bellowed, his voice calibrated to shock a target into obedience. "Drop to your knees, now. Do it!"

The Master's only response was to roll his head lazily back. The mellifluous bass roll of his laughter seemed to fill the whole console room, swirling around behind the soldier's backs and enclosing them. Then quite suddenly he stopped and looked directly at them.

"Oh, I do apologise. You were serious, weren't you?"

"Who are you?" the bodyguard demanded, striding forward and shoving his gun under the Master's nose. "How many more are there?"

The Master inspected the firearm wavering before his eyes with scientific curiosity but didn't so much as flinch. He indicated the door leading deeper into the labyrinthine recesses of the ship.

"I'm quite alone, I assure you. But do feel free to check for yourselves. I'll just wait for you here."

The man hesitated, feeling the need to stamp his authority on the situation by doing something other than what was courteously suggested by this stranger who was, by any sensible criteria, their prisoner. To his annoyance he found himself unable to think of a reasonable alternative.

"All right, we will!" he asserted, hoping that if he voiced his compliance with enough authority no one would notice.

The Master didn't laugh at him. His face became if anything more impassive, his eyes just widening a fraction, the light dancing within them becoming enlivened.

"You two." The leader beckoned at the two nearest soldiers. With me. You..." He singled out the remaining man and then glared at the Master, who returned a look of slightly wounded innocence. "Watch him!"

They charged out, into the corridor leading deeper into the TARDIS, and the Master calmly watched the door and listened to the sound of their boots receding into the distance. Once all was quiet he turned back to his lone remaining visitor.

The soldier was about thirty, tall and well-exercised with hard, rubbery features, prominent eye sockets and hair scraped back from his forehead, emphasising the early signs of baldness. On finding himself the subject of the Master's gaze he raised his weapon higher with a jerk, hunching his shoulders and tucking his chin down as if he could hide behind the gun.

The Master smiled, his eyes soft and black.

"Don't be nervous."

* * * * *

Kallon sat primly on the edge of one of the hard plastic seats in the mess hut, hands clasped on top of the table in front of him, eyeing the duo sat across from him with an amiable precision. The Doctor sat likewise, consciously or not copying his pose, his unsmiling face like something carved of stone. Alison slouched back with arms folded, just hoping the Doctor wouldn't say anything too insulting which might get them deeper into trouble.

"Now then, Doctor," Kallon began, "I think you have some questions to answer, don't you?"

The Doctor's nostrils flared imperiously and he tossed his head back.

"No," he said. "I think you do."

Alison winced.

Kallon's eyebrows flew up in mingled surprise and amusement and he glanced around at the soldiers as if in search of support. They were slumped wearily on the chairs scattered about the room, taking relief from what little warmth and comfort the flimsy structure offered. Kallon's remaining two guards, by contrast, stood firmly to attention behind him, flanking the exit.

"Do you, indeed?" Kallon smiled. "Considering that you're unidentified strangers who've mysteriously appeared at a murder scene in a war zone, don't you think you're overplaying your hand just a tad?"

"No, because I think there's a reason why the morale officer for the entire brigade has been stuffed into a fast ship with just six guards and rushed to this doom-laden, fog-bound little outpost where we're all probably going to get killed before morning."

There was a stirring and exchange of glances amongst the soldiers and the Doctor threw them a scornful look.

"Oh, come on. Do you think they were really expecting the thirty of you to fare better than the sixty they sent out first? You're canaries lowered down the mineshaft."

He returned his attention to Kallon, fixing him with an inquisitorial stare.

"But you... you're a senior officer. They wouldn't just discard you the way they would these men. Not without a genuine reason. No, Major, your story doesn't add up."

Alison looked across at Kallon. She had seen a lot of dishonest people cornered in her travels with the Doctor. If Kallon was one of them then he hid it better than anyone she'd seen.

"Very interesting," he responded lightly, "but not really relevant to your situation. What are you doing here, Doctor? You know it won't take long to disprove your escape capsule story."

The Doctor dismissed the point with an impatient wave of his hand and stared directly into Kallon's face, inspecting him like some abstract logical puzzle to be solved. His eyes narrowed just a shade and he drew breath to speak very slowly:

"This... has happened before, hasn't it?"

Kallon didn't instantly respond, and in the space he left the Doctor leaned forward, an eagerness sparking in his posture and a twitch at the corner of his lips.

"That's it, isn't it? That's why you're here, it's so obvious! It's because you've lost men elsewhere on the planet the same way, and you never found out what happened to them, and you're terribly, terribly frightened that the Telaxians have found a way of killing that you don't understand. Own up, Major, you know I'm right!"

Kallon gave a light grunt of amusement as though politely responding to an unfunny anecdote.

"Well, I'm pleased your theory excites you so, but if it were true, you'd agree that your knowing it just lends weight to the idea that you're involved in whatever's happening."

"How many incidents have there been?" pursued the Doctor, oblivious. "Were they scattered around the planet or close together? Did you recover the bodies? What was the cause of death?"

Kallon laughed a light, pleasant laugh and scratched his head.

"It's funny, I don't normally have this much trouble getting my point across. Try to understand, Doctor, I am not the one who is facing interrogation. I am not the one who has no authorisation to be on this base. I am not the one who is facing the distinct possibility of summary execution. Now, if you can convince me that you really are an innocent passer-by then you just might learn some of what you want to know."

"On the contrary," the Doctor said archly. "If you can convince me that this is something other than a Telaxian war tactic, then I just might be prepared to help you."

The lofty self-confidence with which he said it was so absolute that even Kallon was silenced for a moment, his mouth falling half open. He recovered quickly and leaned back in his chair.

"Well, I'll give you points for..."

"Oh, for God's sake!"

Alison, her frustrating boiling up by the second at the realisation that the two of them could go on fencing like this all day, burst out angrily:

"We weren't on a passenger ship, okay? We just landed here by accident. That's not an escape capsule, it's our own ship. It's bigger than it looks."

The Doctor stared at her, looking betrayed.

"Alison!"

"Oh, shut up, Doctor. It's not like he was swallowing it."

Kallon looked a little put out at having the quarry he had been chasing suddenly served up to him on a platter, but quickly rallied and looked smug.

"Finally we're getting some..."

"And you!" Alison rounded on him. "You really think we killed sixty men and then sat around waiting for more to arrive so we could tell them that lame story about the escape pod? Give us some credit!"

He fell silent, looking genuinely at a loss for a response, and all three of them sat staring at one another, waiting for someone to crack and be the first to speak.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Master moved nearer step by step, his footfalls oddly silent in the control room's steady hum.

"Been doing this sort of thing long?" he asked conversationally.

Finger wrapped tightly about the trigger, the soldier shifted his feet like a man who wanted very much to back away but knew he shouldn't. He clamped his jaw shut.

"Killed many people so far?" the Master asked.

His placid, liquid eyes held those of his quarry effortlessly. He let the silence stretch out second by second till it drew an answer.

"Ye... I mean..."

"You mean no." The Master's eyes slanted down sympathetically. "Well not to worry. You're young. What's your name?"

"Corporal Firman, Sir, uh..."

The soldier scowled at hearing the word "Sir" slip unbidden from his tongue. He squared his jaw and raised his voice to reassert his authority, but the sound which emerged was that of a high-pitched plea.

"Stay back! Stay where you are!"

He glanced quickly at the exit through which the other soldiers had disappeared. The Master followed his look and his smile settled comfortably.

"Ah, no, I'm afraid your friends will not be returning." He rocked back on his heels and eyed the corporal with a proprietary air. "The TARDIS is vast, and its internal configuration is... eccentric. By now they are hopelessly lost and will find their way back only by my good graces."

Firman licked his lips quickly.

"You... you'll help them?"

The Master sniffed in a long, noisy breath through his mechanical nostrils while making a show of chewing over the question. The air was of no use to him but it was another turn of the screw on the soldier's hard-pressed nerves.

"I might."

Firman with a little shake of his head reminded himself of who was holding the gun and jerked the muzzle at the black-garbed figure.

"Do it, then. Bring them back."

"Mmm..." The Master quite literally didn't move a muscle. He stood like a statue, but for the gleam in his eyes. "Later, perhaps. If you'll do a little something for me."

He watched closely the young soldier shift his grip on his gun, struggling with the knowledge that this was not how this conversation should be going. He spoke again with a little more firmness.

"Oh, do put that foolish weapon aside."

The Master covered the ground between them in two smooth strides and unhurriedly placed a hand on the barrel of the gun, pushing it aside and drawing it from Firman's unresisting grip. The soldier looked at his empty hands with a puzzled air as if the weapon had simply vanished by some conjuring trick.

"There," said the Master, his voice soft and reassuring. "Don't you feel more comfortable? We'll just set this down here in case we need it later."

He placed the gun on the console top, well within reach of either of them, and returned his attention to Firman who stared back at him with a wary, childlike defiance.

"Now... about that little task you were going to do for me."

"I... you..." Firman's jaw muscles knotted tautly and he gabbled out: "You're my prisoner! I'm doing nothing for you."

The Master gave a little "hmf" of genuine amusement.

"Come now. I'm sure you don't really believe that."

Though his body was plastic and metal, and all that ran through his veins was a pale blue transmission fluid, he felt an old, burning power flare through him, and his voice, when he spoke again, was like iron.

"A prisoner? I think not. But you will learn, my young friend. You will learn to know me by my true name. Listen now. I am the Master, and you will obey me!" His flippant facade fell away and his lips set into a cruel twist. "You... will... OBEY... me!"

"I... I..." Firman struggled a moment longer, a fly caught in a spider's web, before his pride and spirit and courage and all that made him unique dissolved in the black light of the Master's eyes. "I... will obey you, Master."

He lowered his head, and the Master laid his hand upon it like a priest giving his blessing, allowing himself a slow, leisurely smile.

"Good boy. You've made a wise choice."

He straightened Firman up with a clap on his shoulder and beckoned him to the other side of the console.

"Come, then. We have work to do." He flicked a switch and brought data scrolling across a monitor. "By now the Doctor will doubtless be having some merry adventure out there, so it's only fair that you and I should initiate one of our own. Now, the thing to understand is that the Doctor feels that to make use of his craft's scanning equipment before plunging into the unknown would ruin the surprise. I have a different outlook. I don't like surprises. I am therefore in the happy position of being the only person on this planet who knows exactly what is going on here. Hence the little errand I have in mind for you."

* * * * *

In the mess hut, the atmosphere had not improved. Alison, Kallon and the Doctor sat staring at one another in silence, each challenging the others to speak first.

Alison glanced between the two men. Kallon was very calm, apparently unconcerned and unhurried, ready to wait there in silence all night long. But when she looked at the Doctor she knew straight away that there was only one possible ending to this. He was far from unconcerned and far from unhurried. He was bursting with suppressed energy and the need to jump up and do something, but his immeasurable pride and stubbornness hemmed it all in like a dam and just kept it seething inside. He would sit there till doomsday rather than admit defeat.

Kallon sighed and tugged his ear restively, giving up the contest as if it were a thing of no consequence.

"Fine. What harm can it do?"

He glanced round at the soldiers, slumped in their chairs and observing the scene with dull-eyed curiosity.

"You men... don't you have a perimeter to patrol?"

Sergeant Wolff straightened in his seat, his shoulders squaring and his brows drawing in to hide his eyes in shadow.

"The defence grid's functioning," he said gruffly. "Anything tries to get in, we'll know about it."

Kallon didn't reply, he just leaned back in his chair looking expectant. Wolff moved his jaw for a few moments as if chewing on something bitter, then with a grunt levered his heavy frame upright.

"Come on, lads," he growled. "Everyone out."

"I don't recommend it," the Doctor said quietly, even as the men moved to obey as slowly as was humanly possible without actually refusing altogether.

He didn't shift his eyes from Major Kallon across the table from him.

"In fact, if I was trying to get my men killed, sending them to wander around the camp in small, easily ambushed groups during the hours of darkness is probably the method I'd choose."

Kallon held his eyes for a moment, then glanced across at Wolff.

"On your way, Sergeant."

"Yes, Sir!"

Wolff stamped a boot on the floor as he came to attention and his men filed out behind him into the cold, damp, misty night. Kallon waited until the doors clicked shut behind them before speaking again.

"Frontline combat troops. Very low security clearance."

"No doubt," the Doctor replied. "The less they know, the more willing they are to go out and get themselves killed for no good reason."

"Yes, yes." Kallon dismissed the jibe with an airy wave. "Now, do you want to know about the last time this happened or not?"

The Doctor shrugged but acquiesced with a regal air of detachment.

"Go on, then."

Alison found herself biting her lip to withhold a smile at the way a tiny grimace of irritation popped up through Kallon's carefree facade before being suppressed. She couldn't quite remember if she was still angry with the Doctor.

"All right." Kallon pressed on. "This happened, or something very like it happened, two days ago at another forward strongpoint halfway around the planet. That one wasn't out in the open like this, they were fortifying the mouth of a system of caves. Eighty men simply vanished. No distress call, nothing untoward in their last communication. No, we never found the bodies. The caves are a vast maze, we assume they're concealed in some deep dark corner. And no, we never saw any Telaxians either. Life scans didn't detect anything down there but the creeping vermin you'd expect." Kallon gave the Doctor an inquiring look. "Thoughts, Doctor?"

The Doctor leaned back in his seat, rolling his head back to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling, or more likely, Alison suspected, just to make Kallon wait a little longer.

"Tell me," he said after a longish pause, "what made you choose this site in particular for a fort?"

Kallon frowned, looking doubtful as to the relevance of this, but he beckoned to one of his men.

"Corporal?"

The bodyguard retrieved a slim datapad from the thigh pocket of his uniform and his face was illuminated in the blue glow of its display as he tapped at the screen.

"Erm... it says it's a bit lower than the surrounding countryside, so sheltered. Also less rocky. They say that's because the stones were collected up and used for the wall."

There was a silence long enough for the corporal to look up from the screen to see if something was amiss.

"Wall?" repeated the Doctor, eyes closed as if that way he could keep his annoyance hemmed up inside. "What wall?"

"Don't get excited," said Kallon. "There are bits and pieces of primitive stone structures all over this planet. But our men weren't killed by angry natives. The people who built that wall have been extinct for thousands of years."

"I'll be the judge of that," the Doctor replied firmly. "You." He focused on the bodyguard. "Where is this wall exactly?"

The man shrugged and walked over to show him the datapad.

"See? Big circle, half a mile wide, the camp's right in the middle of it. Old settlement, they say."

The Doctor took one brief look at the diagram.

"That's not a settlement."

The corporal looked down, appearing slightly hurt.

"Well..."

"Where are the interior buildings?" the Doctor asked. "Where's the entrance?"

Wordlessly the corporal pointed at a mark on the map.

"That is not an entrance," the Doctor said with icy patience. "It has a wall in it."

"Well... it's a couple of big stone pillars, taller than all the rest. The survey team called it a gate."

The Doctor squeezed finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose.

"I see. Fine, fine, fine." He took a deep breath and then looked up, bright-eyed and alert. "Don't you people see it yet? There was never any settlement here. That wall wasn't built to keep intruders out. It was built to keep something in!"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Firman heard the soldiers emerging from the mess hut and cowered like a furtive rodent, crouching down low to the mud, trying to sink into the ground and disappear. Convinced he was about to be detected, his hands cramped with terror not at the thought of discovery but at the nameless, unthinkable consequences should he fail in the task his master has set him.

They didn't see him. The troopers split up into pairs and spread out across the camp. None of them were inclined to walk out into the graveyard where Firman lay blanketed by the dark. He waited a few moments longer and then resumed his efforts, scraping at the soft earth with a trowel and with cracked, blackened fingernails, digging a hole deeper and deeper at the base of a cross.

* * * * *

The Doctor leaped to his feet, suddenly bursting with energy and enthusiasm.

"Right! Let's go."

The others looked up at him doubtfully.

"Er... where to?" Kallon asked.

The Doctor jabbed the datapad screen impatiently with one bony finger.

To these pillars. To the gate, as your people have insisted on calling it."

"Why?" asked Alison in despairing protest.

The Doctor snorted derisively but managed to slow himself down enough to explain.

"Isn't it obvious? It's not a gate, but it's something. It was built higher than the rest, so it's significant. There may be a clue there. Now come on, we're just wasting time."

Kallon didn't stir, leaning back in his seat and linking his hands over his stomach.

"You want to leave the security of the force barrier and wander round the wilderness in the middle of the night looking at old stones."

"Security?" repeated the Doctor, eyebrows lifting like hawk's wings. "Interesting choice of words. Ask poor Mr Sanderline how secure it is. I already told you, that wall was built to keep something in. Whatever's doing the killing is walled up in here with us!"

"Mm." Kallon glanced out through the semi-transparent plastic window of the hut, eyeing the moisture beading on its surface and the pitch black night beyond. "All the same, I think I'll leave this one to you. Corporal Bremen here will go with you, won't you, Corporal?"

"Yes, Sir," the corporal with the datapad replied dutifully.

"Suit yourself," the Doctor said, looking far from displeased at this turn of events. "Come on, Alison."

"Ah, no." Kallon raised a casual hand. "She stays here, I think. Call it a little insurance on my part."

The Doctor, already heading for the exit, jolted to a halt and whirled to face him.

"What?" His lips tautening, he advanced pace by pace on where the officer remained calmly seated. "If you think I'm going to leave her here, with someone like you, a preening, callous, self..."

"Um, Doctor?"

Alison interrupted him diffidently and he looked round at her, irritated at having his flow broken just as he was gathering steam.

"What?"

"To be honest with you," she confessed, "I'm okay with staying here in the dry."

He stared at her for a moment, visibly holding onto his breath, and closed his eyes for a second before speaking again.

"Right. Fine. Have a lovely evening, the both of you." He turned again and strode for the exit. "Coming, Corporal? Apparently it's just you and me."

* * * * *

Outside in the night, two soldiers stamped their feet so that the mist swirled agitated about their boots. They glowered in sullen resentment at the dim glow emerging from the huts and thought of the warmth within.

"Morale officer," one muttered bitterly. "Like our job's not tough enough we have to babysit some spoilt little tenderfoot."

"Right," agreed the other. "A spoilt little tenderfoot who's just looking for an excuse to have us all shot for dissent."

"Did you hear about the morale officer from the 27th? Sent a whole platoon to the eradicator because he didn't know which one of them wrote a limerick on the general's command ship."

"Oh, yeah..." The other brightened. "Hey, didn't he walk under a diffusion bomb at the Merovia bridgehead?"

"Huh." His companion grunted with the smugness of a juicy secret. "That's what the dispatches say."

"What do you mean?"

"I had it from a bombardier who got transferred to us from the 27th. He was one of the survivors after they got wiped out at Doniman. Anyway, he says there was never any diffusion bomb. He got fragged by his own men."

The second soldier paused, then gave him a sideways sceptical look, suspecting he was being laughed at.

"Nah... they couldn't kill a morale officer. They'd never get away with it. There'd be investigations."

"No," said his friend with a cunning look. "See, these officers are all well connected, all from rich government families. Now, no one wants to hear that their little prince got shot in the back by his own men. They want to hear that he went down a hero, holding off the alien horde. So whatever anyone thinks really happened, they're all just happy to stick with the diffusion bomb story."

The other soldier digested this, turning a contemplative gaze back towards the huts.

"Wow," he commented at last, and paused a few moments longer. " Course, the 27th didn't have civilians scurrying about the place, telling tales."

"No."

Their breath steaming in the chilly damp air, they both eyed the huts in silence.

* * * * *

Alison sat back and sighed gustily in her boredom, her eyes roaming around the drab, cavernous room in search of something other than plastic chairs and tables to settle upon.

"Should have told him he had one hour or the girl gets it," she said belligerently. "Call yourself a villain?"

Sitting across the table from her, Kallon looked up from his calm perusal of a hand-held data pad.

"Well... no," he said. "You may not like me very much, Alison, but believe it or not I came here to help."

"You're no fun," she grumbled, folding her arms. She glanced over at the guard on the door. "Anyway, you've only got one henchman left. What happened to the others?"

He gave her a thoughtful look, then twisted at the waist to inspect his sole remaining bodyguard.

"Hm. Good point." He lifted his head to address the man. "Trivic. Go and see what's..."

Kallon broke off and looked at the misty gloom half-visible through the hut's window. He turned back around to take in the desolation of the abandoned tables and chairs around them in this room which had somehow become deserted but for them.

"Actually," he said softly, "never mind. Stay where you are."

* * * * *

The Doctor puffed a little with the exertion of hiking through the muddy, rocky terrain, sloping steadily up towards where his companion assured him the two supposed gateposts stood. The moisture hanging heavily in the night air beaded silver on his hair and coat and shone on the pale skin of his face. He stopped to take a breath and glanced round at the soldier struggling along at his heels.

"Come on. We haven't got all night as far as I know. What's your name anyway?"

"Bremen, Sir," replied the corporal. The Doctor tossed his head back scornfully.

"Your first name, you ridiculous man. You're not at school."

"Erm..." A young man with half-formed, well-scrubbed features and pale curly hair plastered damply to his scalp, the soldier looked down at his feet, embarassed. "It's Jak, Sir."

"Fine. And it's Doctor, not Sir. Please try to remember that."

"Yes Si... Doctor."

The Doctor set off once more at speed, his long legs carrying him over the ground fast enough to make Jak Bremen struggle to keep up. They had long since penetrated the force barrier around the encampment, Bremen using a coded key to deactivate one of the pylons, and they were now striking out alone over unclaimed land. The young corporal kept one hand on the sidearm holstered at his hip, his eyes roving cautiously over what little he could make out of their surroundings. Soon the stones loomed up before them, black against the night sky, twenty foot high rough-hewn monoliths weighing many tons.

The Doctor stood with hands in pockets, feet braced apart, looking up at the columns with an air of satisfaction.

"Right," he said. "Jak, did you bring a torch?"

The young soldier looked suddenly queasy, tensing at the unexpected question as though struck in the pit of the stomach.

"No... I mean... was I supposed to?"

The Doctor gave an impatient "tut".

"Lucky I did, then."

A pencil-thin black tube in his hand flashed into life and played its beam along the rain-slick surface of the nearest column. Bremen watched him, standing awkwardly in the knowledge of his own uselessness.

"What's this?" the Doctor asked suddenly, the pitch of his voice rising a notch as the torch's light zeroed in on a point six feet above the ground.

"That?" Bremen peered closely, his dark-accustomed eyes blinking against the light. "Oh..."

The pillar bore a row of crude markings, furrowed deeply into the stone. Little more than angular scratches crushed up one against the other as though created in extreme haste.

"Some of the monuments have those," he said with a shrug. "No one knows what they're for."

The Doctor's only response to him was an irritable shake of the head while he peered closer, raising the torch up high.

"Well, it's a warning, that much is clear enough. Let's see. Beware the... the single eye... the fire... burns like ice..." He frowned. "This is surprisingly difficult."

Bremen goggled at him.

"You can read it?"

"I can generally read all alien scripts," the Doctor replied airily. "But this is so primitive, it barely counts as writing at all. Now then..." He traced the last few marks with his fingertip,  
brushing away clumps of ancient moss and lichen from the rock. "Beware the... the giants made of... of... rainwater?"

He paused, looking faintly embarrassed.

"Well. I might have that last bit slightly wrong. Then again, with the limitations of this script, they might just have been expressing as best they could a concept that was strange to them."

"Rainwater." Bremen puzzled over this. His eye was caught by the sheen of water on the Doctor's coat, and the way it glinted in the starlight with his movements. "So, what... shiny?"

The Doctor glanced round, not with a cutting remark for once, but looking genuinely and pleasantly surprised at hearing something from his military companion which was not stupid.

"Not a bad thought. They were a stone-age people, they would have had no glass, no metals, no polished gems... yes, it might just mean shiny."

He ran his fingertips thoughtfully across the marks driven into the column, and the short-lived brightening of his expression fell steadily into shadow as he mused softly to himself:

"Shiny giants. With a single eye. And fire that burns like ice."

* * * * *

Back at the encampment, four of the troopers stood huddled round a portable heater in the shelter of the storage bunker from which they had retrieved it, shielded from the prying eyes of the officer if he should choose to emerge from the mess hut and check that they were patrolling as ordered. The device glowed redly in the night, sending waves of blessed, shimmering heat through their bodies, driving out the cold embedded in their bones, allowing fingers and jaws to unclench. Their mood lifted, this simplest of pleasures making life seem quite bearable after all.

Not fifty feet away, the loose earth stirred, unnoticed, at the base of one of the crosses in the makeshift graveyard. It was sucked down as though into a muddy whirlpool and then forced back up, the ground shifting like a living, beating heart, the cross itself slanting slowly over as it was undermined. Slowly a great bulging mass of earth rose up like some grotesque black monster, and then fell away in clumps, revealing little by little the mud-streaked thing beneath.

A great silver hand drove into the firmer ground alongside the grave, crushing the heavy soil with inhuman strength as the thing pulled itself upward. Eyes as dark and blank as the windows of an abandoned home fixed themselves on the four armed men who stood clustered such a little distance away.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Scarcely able to believe he had come this far undetected, Firman dragged his burden over the sodden ground with the strength of desperation, the consequences should he fail to return a dimly conceived but vivid horror lurking in his imagination. The TARDIS doors swung open to admit him at his approach and with a final, gasping effort he hauled himself across the threshold and collapsed panting to the pristine white floor within.

He found himself staring at the glossy polished surface of the Master's right shoe. Cowering, he stared up at the satanic, impassive features which gazed down upon him and wordlessly gestured at the bulky object he had half killed himself to drag in here. Firman cringed and prayed that he had not made a mistake. Not been too slow. Not brought the wrong thing. Not forgotten something. The thought of his master's displeasure raged black fire in his mind, blotting out everything else.

The Master let him sweat a moment longer, then allowed himself a long, slow smile.

"Well, done, Firman. Oh, that's splendid. Now we can begin."

* * * * *

The four troopers around the heater were standing facing inwards, hands spread to its warmth, and never knew what was approaching until it was almost upon them. One man glimpsed movement from the corner of one eye, and turning gasped in a breath with a throat locked suddenly rigid.

It stood there looking at them. A silent, faceless thing, six and half feet tall, its large dark holes of eyes resting upon them with an air of quiet curiosity detached from fear, anger or passion. From the flat slab of machinery harnessed to its chest there ran a network of pipes and filaments, spreading and coiling all over the silver metallic fabric of its body, strangely making it resemble a hospital patient still hooked up to the drips and feeds that kept them alive. Its great gleaming hands hung loosely at its sides, the awful strength visible in its thick, unmoving fingers. In its bald, almost featureless head, steel tubes sprouted upwards to meet in a compact hemisphere in which was embedded a glinting white crystal. In the gloom, it looked for all the world as though it had a single great eye raised above its head.

The soldiers stared frozen at the thing, and it stared impassively back at them, showing no more interest than a microscope shows in the specimen on a slide. At last a thin, mechanical monotone was emitted from the plain slit which served it for a mouth.

"Irrational sentient lifeforms. Eliminating."

The recognition of the threat slapped the troopers into action and they grabbed their weapons, but it was far too late. The device above the creature's head flared into life with a searing white light that burned their eyes, froze their blood and tore through every fibre and sinew. Lips twisting back from their teeth in agony, they crumpled like empty sacks of bones, each man's flesh shrivelled to a brown, dried-out husk.

The deathly light faded but their killer did not move. It stood quite still in the silence which followed, looking down at its victims with neither joy nor regret.

* * * * *

Bremen blundered clumsily down the slope back towards the camp, tripping and slipping in the dark on the swampy, uneven ground in his efforts to keep up with the Doctor's fleet-footed form. Miraculously avoiding a single wrong step, the Doctor sped towards the misty lights of the perimeter, wordless and intent, only his wide round eyes making it clear just how bad things were.

"What's wrong?" Bremen called after him, twisting his ankle and barely saving himself from falling. "What are we running for?"

"No time," the Doctor responded, without looking back or even slowing. "We have to get back. We have to warn them."

"Warn them?" Bremen protested. "Why don't I just call them on the radio?"

The Doctor dug his heels into the mud, skidding to a halt, and Bremen helplessly collided with him, tripping over various feet and falling flat on his face.

"Good idea," the Doctor said, standing over him. "Call them, then."

* * * * *

Kallon and Alison heard the peep of the communicator strapped to his wrist and he lifted his hand to reply, but even as he was drawing breath the doors of the mess hut crashed open. Sergeant Wolff stamped in, white-faced and wild-eyed, plasma rifle trailing loosely from one hand, the water soaking his hair and running down his face like tears.

"Four men!" he bellowed. "I've just lost four more men!"

"Calm down, Sergeant," Kallon replied, crossing his legs as he sat back in his seat. "Tell me what happened."

"We've got to leave this place," Wolff fumed. "We've got to go now before whatever it is gets us all."

"That's out of the question." said Kallon with studied patience. "Our task is to find out what killed the original garrison, not to take flight the moment we hit trouble ourselves. Now give me your report like a soldier."

Wolff's eyes widened, his lips tightening, and suddenly Alison realised that this was more than just the blustering resentment of a trooper who knew he would have to obey orders in the end. She looked quickly across at Kallon, wondering if he realised it too. His calm, slighly mocking look of scepticism certainly didn't give that impression.

"Are you going to give the order to pull us out, Sir?" Wolff demanded, his formality a brittle surface to the bubbling emotions beneath. Kallon's response was the calmest of smiles.

"Sergeant, I do hope you're not going to prove insubordinate. It would be most unfortunate if I had to make a negative report to headquarters about your lack of courage and dedication."

The softly-spoken menace in his voice could not have been clearer if he had stood up and struck the man. But Wolff was long past being intimidated. With a snarl he snatched up his plasma rifle, clasping it tight to his chest.

"That's it, you little..."

Appearing like a ghost behind him, Kallon's bodyguard pressed a handgun into the sergeant's ribs. Kallon hadn't stirred, and gave a little half smile.

"I advise you not to say anything you'll regret, Sergeant."

Wolff stood frozen in anger, glaring down at the calm young officer, and then the high-pitched scream of a plasma weapon being fired cut across them and the bodyguard threw back his head, mouth gaping wordlessly as a flaring blast of silver energy devastated his spine. He crumpled, gun slipping from limp fingers, and beyond him were visible two hard-eyed troopers in the doorway, weapons raised and ready.

Alison stumbled back, kicking her chair clumsily away, and saw from the corner of her eye Kallon's smooth, unhesitating movement. While one hand snapped shut like a trap about the muzzle of Wolff's rifle, with the ball of his other palm he struck him square on the jaw, sending him stumbling drunkenly back towards his men, leaving his gun in Kallon's grasp. Kallon wheeled, his face unblinking and calm, and played the weapon's dazzling blast across the rear wall of the hut, annihilating the flimsy plastic in an ear-splitting storm of sparks and leaving a scorched hole the size of a car. He grabbed Alison's wrist with his free hand and she found herself tugged half off her feet, stumbling along behind him as he darted to safety, the blasts of the troopers' rifles roaring in their ears.

* * * * *

Bremen looked down at the communicator, puzzled.

"No, he's not answering. Why wouldn't he answer?"

"I wonder," the Doctor responded, stony-faced. "Come on."

They sprinted on down the slope till the shapes of the huts and gun towers solidified and sharpened in the haze. The Doctor was slowing and turning to call on Bremen to open the barrier when a fierce, flashing white light blazed out from the centre of the camp with a sound like the hissing of a thousand serpents.

"What..." Bremen gulped to loosen his dry throat before he could complete his sentence. "What was that?"

His eyes flickering agitatedly across the open ground beyond the barrier, the Doctor gave no indication of whether he had heard him or not.

"Might just be the one... we might still be in time... oh no!"

He had seen one of the troopers scrambling frantically up the nearest of the two gun towers.

"No!" the Doctor bellowed, his voice hoarse and cracked with desperation. "Get down from there, you don't know what you're doing!"

If the soldier heard, then he gave no sign. He grabbed the twin handles of the heavy disruptor cannon in the armoured nest at the top of the tower and jammed his thumbs down onto to the triggers, the livid red beams of energy slashing across the camp to blast a great gout of flying mud from the ground. In the hellish light of the explosion could be seen the silhouetted figures of fleeing troopers, and behind them something else. A tall shape which stalked unhurriedly through the flames. As the Doctor and Jak watched the hissing fury and the white light came again from the eye above its head, and two soldiers twisted and died in its glare.

A second volley of shots came from the tower, better aimed, and the silver creature stumbled sideways in the blast. The other tower opened up, the dual beams striking the ground almost at its feet and it fell heavily, struggling on its side for a moment before laboriously starting to climb upright.

"Yes!" Bremen clenched his fist triumphantly at seeing it go down. The Doctor shook his head bitterly.

"No. We're too late, Jak, this is just beginning."

* * * * *

The camp's antimatter reactor glowed bright as a star. Where it had just been ticking over to provide light to the huts and maintain the force barrier, it now poured out its energy to feed the frantically firing cannon and to keep the barrier solid against stray shots and flying rock. Unseen, the power hummed through the air and across the sleeping graveyard, and like water simmering in the heat, the earth itself began to stir.

* * * * *

The silver giant was caught square between the shoulders by a volley of disruptor fire and the blast ripped through its body, tearing one of its arms half off and reducing its faceplate to a melted ruin. The soldiers cheered, their confidence surging, and they advanced on the lumbering broken toy of a creature, rifles at shoulder height, pouring a blazing stream of silver fire into its body. Pointlessly, each time it fell it started laboriously to make its way back up to its feet, only to be caught with a fresh volley, its legs shattered and torn, its torso leaking and spewing fluids, its great hands clutching blindly. The soldiers clustered around its fallen body and blazed away, fingers clamped to the triggers, until at last it stopped moving, and then they kept firing for another full minute, just to be really sure, until it was reduced to a molten chunk of burning wreckage barely recognisable as a humanoid form.

The troopers stood back, breathing hard with nervous exhaustion, glancing around to reassure themselves that they really had just lived through it. In the utter silence after the din of battle, one quavering voice was heard:

"Oh my God... look!"

The shocked, weary men followed the pointing finger with their eyes and trembled. All across the graveyard, faceless things were pushing their way up out of the ground, dragging themselves upright, standing calmly amongst the crosses and gazing out of the night with their dark, empty eyes. The soldiers cowered in superstitious dread as what they had believed to be the graves of their comrades disgorged their occupants back into the world.

* * * * *

The Doctor and Bremen watched in grim silence as fully two dozen of the creatures appeared silently from the earth. Bremen glanced across at his companion's pale, taut features.

"You knew this was going to happen."

The Doctor nodded.

"I suspected. Where there is one Cyberman there will be others."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The Master stood with his hands folded behind his back, eyes resting steadily on the viewscreen which showed a vivid, soundless image of the scene outside. Stalking Cybermen advanced unhurriedly between the graves, the blasts of the trooper's rifles scorching their steely skins but barely slowing them down, the tower cannon blowing great gouts of mud up from the earth and wreathing them in smoke, their tall figures barely seen as black outlines in the haze.

"Mm. How exciting."

As casually as if requesting a cup of tea from his secretary, he flicked a switch on the console and brought up an image on a smaller screen. It showed the three bodyguards who had entered the TARDIS interior making a wary progress down one of a thousand identical corridors. Their eyes bore a hunted, bewildered look as they shambled on, becoming more helplessly, desperately lost with each passing minute. The Master allowed himself a little smile before licking his lips and leaning forward to speak into the microphone.

"Gentlemen. If you are satisfied with the results of your search, may I recommend that you take the third left, the first right, then the second right and the fourth left, and rejoin me in the console room?"

They stared up in search of the disembodied voice, knowing they should be suspicious and yet grasping desperately at this straw of hope. They scurried along in obedience to his instructions, and within a minute were stumbling dazedly back into the console room.

"Welcome back," said the Master equably. "And did you enjoy looking around?"

The leader glared at him, fiddling with his rifle in search of an excuse to use it. Then he realised something was missing.

"Where's Firman?" he barked. "What have you done with him?"

"Firman?" The Master looked thoughtful for a second. "Oh, your other friend. I believe he has gone to join in the battle."

"Battle?" the man repeated stupidly. "What battle?"

The Master gestured loosely at the screen and all three soldiers stared dumbfounded at the brutal scene of carnage outside. Two Cybermen were visible reaching the base of one of the gun towers and ripping it bodily from the ground, the whole structure toppling like a tree and crashing to the earth, the soldier at the top scrambling for safety, staring like a panic-stricken animal at the looming silver creatures encircling him.

"We're under attack!" the lead bodyguard barked. "You!" He levelled his gun at the Master. "Open those doors right now!"

"As you wish," replied the Master meekly, and flicked the door control with a precise move of his fingertip. The three men charged out into the night air.

"Have fun," the Master murmured.

He didn't close the doors immediately behind them, but strolled to the threshold and took a look out into the night. Not that he could see anything that the TARDIS monitors couldn't show him, but he sniffed the air and tasted the metallic aroma of ionisation from the energy weapons, listened to the sounds of gunfire from across the camp, closed his eyes and splayed his stiffened fingers as though drinking in the battle, feeling it. Experiencing the world outside the TARDIS from which he had been cut off for so long.

"Wake up!"

The Master opened his eyes to see the Doctor's tense, sharply drawn face in front of him, a bewildered-looking young soldier hovering behind him.

"Hello, Doctor. Having fun?"

"Where's Alison?" the Doctor snapped back. "Have you seen her?"

"Yes, I saw her on the monitor just a few minutes ago. She was being dragged along by the wrist by a rather well-groomed young military man."

The Doctor's eyes flashed dark with anger.

"Kallon!"

"If you say so." The Master shrugged. "Had you not chosen to restrict me to your TARDIS when you set the parameters of my electronic mind, I might have attempted a daring and heroic rescue. Still, you know best."

"That's enough!"

The Master noted the iron-hard focus in the Doctor's voice and stopped pushing. He pointed a finger.

"They went that way."

* * * * *

Alison, stumbling along at Kallon's heels, tugged her hand free in annoyance.

"Get off me! What do you want me along for anyway? It's you they're trying to kill!"

He darted a sharp glance around. They were hidden from immediate discovery in the gap between two huts and the sounds of battle from across the camp showed that the troopers had other things to worry about. Temporarily reassured, he looked down at her.

"I don't think you quite grasp the situation. If they kill me, they need to kill you, and all my men, and the Doctor too. They can't afford to leave witnesses."

She hesitated.

"You're... trying to keep me safe?"

Kallon looked genuinely hurt.

"Yes! What did you think I was doing?"

She couldn't help a shifty little sideways flicker of her eyes, and she talked on quickly to cover it.

"Ok, so where are we going, then?"

He didn't lose his reproachful look right away, but he pointed towards the open area beyond the huts, on the opposite side of the camp from the graveyard.

"My ship. We'll be safe there. Or safer than we are at the moment."

She let herself be pulled along, flinching at a blast of gunfire close by, but found one thing other than her own self-preservation clawing at her mind.

"I wonder where the Doctor is."

"So do I," returned Kallon with uncharacteristic asperity, tightening his grip on her wrist. "I'd especially like to know what's happened to the five bodyguards who seem to have gone missing while investigating or accompanying him."

Alison was silent for a moment, running over in her mind what she knew about the six bodyguards who had arrived with Kallon. One shot by the troopers, one gone off with the Doctor...

"That's right," she said, hurrying along beside him, "What happened to the other four?"

He paused, and she was unreasonably happy to see him just a little uncomfortable before he gave a quick little shrug and replied.

"All right, I sent them to look into that blue box of yours. I'd imagined they'd be back in five minutes."

Alison rolled her eyes.

"Oh, you're kidding! God knows what he's done to them!"

Kallon lifted his eyebrows at her.

"He? Something you want to tell me?"

"Our friend who lives in our blue box," she said. "He gets bored when we leave him in there alone."

"I can't say I blame him."

"It's bigger than it looks, remember? I already told you. You shouldn't have sent those guys poking around, he'll have been like a housecat spotting a bunch of mice."

"Well, they are highly trained soldiers, I think they can probably take care of themselves."

Alison snorted.

"Yeah, right. So where are they, then?"

He wasn't called on to answer, because at that moment they arrived at the sleek silver form of Kallon's spacecraft. They clattered up the ramp and it swept shut behind them with a soft sigh of well-maintained hydraulics. Alison blinked as though awaking from a dream at finding herself sealed safely away from the outside world of cold, damp, mud and gunfire. The ship was warm and quiet, the elegant curved lines of its polished steel and plastic fittings bathed in soft blue light. All at once she realised how tired she was and found herself glancing round for a comfy chair she might slump into.

"We'd better get airborne," said Kallon, his voice bringing her back to her senses as he dropped into the control seat. "We'll get some altitude and then scope out the situation from safety."

"Wait." Alison hurried after him into the nose of the craft where he sat hemmed in by sloping banks of twinkling instruments. "What about the... Doctor!"

Her voice rose in recognition at the sight on one of the monitors of the Doctor's lean form speeding across the open ground towards the ship. The young soldier who had been his guide, or guard, was running alongside him, and not far behind the dark shapes of the surviving troopers were visible blundering along in pursuit. Still a little further behind, towering silver figures made an unhurried but swift and unstoppable progress, their implacable intent written into every stride.

"Open the door!" Alison commanded. "Where's the switch?"

She scanned the baffling instrument panels, trying to think what Kallon had done to close the ramp when they arrived. With a sickening lurch in her stomach, she realised he was ignoring her, his fingers crawling across the controls, continuing his preparations for take-off.

"Sorry," he said, not looking round. "They've had it."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The Doctor and Berman raced to the sleek silver spacecraft and skidded to a halt at the firmly closed ramp. The Doctor looked up resentfully at the tiny portholes in the ship's side but his protest was forestalled by Kallon's voice booming from a concealed speaker:

"I'm sorry, Doctor, I can't risk it. I suggest you keep running. I'm taking off now."

The Doctor glanced back at the soldiers pounding along through the mist not far behind him. Alison's voice burst from the speaker.

"Hold on, Doctor, I'm going to get that door open if it..."

Scuffles were audible and something was knocked over with a crash. The Doctor pursed his lips.

"Oh, for pity's sake."

With a flourish he produced the sonic screwdriver from his coat pocket and pressed it to the locking mechanism embedded in the ship's hull. Sturdy as it was, it hadn't been designed to be thief-proof and he sprang it open with a deft twist of the frequency modulator. He and Berman hastened up the ramp into the warm.

Alison and Kallon were struggling by the pilot's seat, his fists clamped about her wrists in an attempt to restrain her from pressing any more buttons. A draught of cold air warned them of the new arrivals and they both froze and looked up, she with relief, him with a look more of embarrassment than guilt.

"What were you saying?" the Doctor inquired archly. "We couldn't quite catch it over the intercom so we thought we'd better come inside and talk face to face."

Kallon quickly released Alison and stabbed at the switch to close the ramp once more.

"All right, all right. I felt it was too dangerous to open the door. I was trying to keep your friend here safe as well, you know."

"Oh, how heroic," the Doctor replied with excruciating sarcasm. "And how fortunate that saving your own skin happened to coincide with that selfless goal."

Kallon dropped back into the pilot's seat, quickly recovering his self-possession, his head lifting and his features becoming primly unreadable as he started work on the controls again.

"Yes, well, no harm done. Let's get airborne."

The Doctor's hand fell on his wrist.

"You're joking, of course."

Kallon looked up at him, perfectly uncomprehending.

"What do you mean?"

"The soldiers are still out there," the Doctor said patiently. "We're not about to sit here in the warm while they're massacred."

On the monitor, the troopers were visible swarming about the craft, hammering at its hull with fists and rifle butts, while every second the Cybermen drew nearer.

Inside, the hammering was inaudible. Kallon pulled his arm free.

"We certainly are. You weren't here, Doctor, those men were trying to kill us."

"That's a matter to be addressed once they're safely inside. Now, this is the door control, yes?"

"Berman! Restrain this man!"

Kallon rapped out the order, his light, smooth voice turning into a harsh bark of command, and in a flash Berman's sidearm was in his hand.

"Step away, Doctor," he warned.

The Doctor turned just his head to glare at Berman, standing there with gun drawn.

"Berman. And I thought we had such a good rapport going."

The young soldier swallowed nervously, but the muzzle of the gun didn't waver.

"Sorry, Doctor. Orders."

Alison could see his nostrils pinching as he drew breath for an acid rejoinder, and she spoke up shyly to forestall him.

"Doctor... I don't think we can let them in."

It was startling how his look of frosty disdain fell away, a brittle mask cracking apart. The look he turned on her was one of simple disappointment.

"Alison?"

It stabbed her deep, she felt a cold pang in her chest, but shamefacedly she persisted.

"You weren't there before, back in the mess hut. They were out to kill us. I don't want to give them a second chance."

His calm, grave eyes bored into her.

"I seem to remember a few hours ago you were the one who was desperate to help them. But I see that doesn't apply once you have your own neck to worry about."

She lowered her head and Kallon spoke up.

"Doctor, you do realise that if they got on board they'd have to kill you as well, to keep you quiet?"

The Doctor whirled and glared down at him, face thinning, his gaunt cheeks hollowing, and seemed to have to force the words out through lips gone stiff as oak:

"You just... don't get it, do you?"

He looked at the viewscreen. The soldiers were frantic, panic-stricken, surrounded. Some shouldered their weapons to make a futile last stand, others waved their arms and screamed up at the ship, pleading inaudibly for the sanctuary it offered. The Cybermen's blank faces and empty eyes formed a pitiless row of executioners in a tightening noose about them.

"And you're really going to just sit and watch this?" the Doctor asked. "You're going to sit here in safety and comfort with the door securely locked and watch?"

Kallon deliberately averted his eyes from the screen.

"No," he said briskly, "I'd say it's time we were leaving."

"Doctor?" said Alison quietly. He didn't look up from the monitor.

"What?"

"Sorry."

He didn't have time to respond, because with that she threw herself on Berman's gun hand like a wildcat, sinking her teeth into the base of his thumb and clinging to his wrist with both hands. He screamed in shock and pain, and the Doctor and Kallon stared at her wide-eyed for a second before both leaping into action.

Kallon lunged from his seat towards the plasma rifle he'd discarded on the other side of the room. The Doctor moved as if he'd spent the last half hour expecting this move and planning what he'd do in response. With a smooth motion he grasped the collar of Kallon's sharply-cut uniform in one hand, using his own momentum to swing him off balance and send him hurtling out of control, head-first into a wall mounted computer stack. A second later his thin, precise fingers were stabbing at the switches, and with a hiss of hydraulics and a rush of cold, damp air, the ramp split downwards, opening them up to the night and all the dangers it held. 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Kallon snatched up the rifle and wheeled round with a scowl, only to freeze, his expression becoming instantly blank and unreadable, the weapon's muzzle pointing innocently at the floor, at the sight of the troopers swarming up into the ship. They were white-faced, spattered with mud, breathing hard and wild-eyed. Two of Kallon's own bodyguards were amongst them, barely distinguishable from the others with their disordered hair, ruined uniforms and shell-shocked expressions.

"Everybody in," Kallon ordered, as if they whole thing had been his idea. "Quickly, now. Doctor, close the ramp the second they're aboard."

The Doctor smiled slightly and obeyed orders without a word, the ramp lifting beneath the feet of the last two stragglers while they were still blundering up to safety. Then he stepped across to where Alison was still struggling obliviously with Berman, her teeth locked determinedly in his hand, tears of pain in his eyes.

"All right, Alison," he said gently. "I think you can let the soldier go now."

She paused, maintaining her grip while her eyes slid over to him, then released her hold, letting Berman stumble away with a whimper.

"Sorry. I got caught up."

"Yes, I saw that."

The Doctor placed his arm carelessly around her shoulders and they turned to watch Kallon face Sergeant Wolff in the centre of the room.

"Glad you made it, Sergeant," Kallon was saying breezily. "Casualties?"

Wolff wide, red-rimmed eyes glared at him and the fourteen soldiers clustered at his back shuffled their feet in silence. The heavy smell of sweat and wet bodies pervaded the pristine confines of the spacecraft.

"Don't insult me, Kallon," Wolff growled. "You were going to fly off and leave us here to die if the Doctor hadn't stopped you."

Kallon's composure wobbled just a fraction, and his face hardened to cover it.

"Well, if that were true, could you really blame me? You did try to kill me, if you recall!"

Wolff grimaced his contempt.

"If I'd tried to kill you, you'd know it because you'd be dead."

"Like my unfortunate bodyguard whom you killed, you mean?"

The sergeant shrugged, but not with a criminal's indifference. More the defiance of a child who knows he's in trouble but believes it's undeserved.

"One of my men shot him. He thought he was attacking me."

Kallon stared suspiciously but came back with no sarcastic rejoinder. There was silence till with a sniff he turned his back and headed back to the control seat.

"And you'll doubtless claim you've no idea which of your men did this. Well, we'll see. For now, you get your wish. We're leaving."

"We're not, you know."

A row of unfriendly eyes turned to the Doctor at his quiet objection. Kallon closed his eyes.

"Doctor, you really are an annoying man. What possible objection could you have to leaving this place?"

"He's one of these peace fanatics," rumbled Wolff. "Probably wants us to go out there and talk to those... things."

"Quite," Kallon agreed. "I hope you didn't hurt any of them, Sergeant. He's the type who'd want us to apologise."

"Nice to see the two of you finding some common ground," said the Doctor, nervelessly facing their twin hostile looks. "But I wasn't making an objection to the principle. It's a matter of practicality."

Alison looked at the angry, darkening faces of the assembled armed men and knew it was time to make the Doctor dial it back.

"Doctor, what are you talking about?" she asked. He glanced down at her.

"Oh, the vertical thrusters are disabled. I noticed that on the way in." He looked innocently at the dumbstruck, bloodless faces around him and shrugged. "I assumed you knew."

Kallon tore himself away from staring aghast at the Doctor, lunged to the controls and started stabbing buttons. The Doctor told Alison with a slight shake of his head that there was nothing to be done, and led her instead to a porthole to look out at the night.

The Cybermen stood like statues, making no hostile moves, just watching, never stirring as the mist oozed about them. Alison shuddered.

"What are they waiting for?"

"Well," the Doctor pondered, "this ship is force-shielded, breaking in wouldn't be easy. Fortunately for them, they don't have to. If we can't take off we can't use the main drive, and if we can't do that we can't generate electricity. The shielding will be drained in an hour, probably less."

"It'll be all right," Kallon said, seated at the console, the strain audible in his voice, stretched tight as piano wire. "I'll put in a call to the main fleet. They'll be able to have a frigate here by then."

The Doctor sighed softly, his eyes never leaving the motionless silver giants assembled on the muddy ground outside.

"I think you'll find they're jamming your transmissions. And whatever else you might think of, they've had plenty of time to think of first. We're not dealing with a bunch of stupid lumbering battle droids, Major, those are Cybermen."

Kallon tapped frustratedly at the switches of the communicator before throwing himself back in his seat and gesturing peevishly at the Doctor.

"Glad you're impressed. I can see you have a lot of admiration for these monsters."

"Admiration?" The Doctor glared back at him. "Yes, perhaps I do. They'll kill us if they can, but they'll do it for a reason. A better one than you people have for trying to kill the Telaxians."

"Is that so? Enlighten us then, oh wise one? What do they want? What have they got against us?"

The Doctor leaned back against the wall and shook his head slowly.

"Want? That's just the point, that's what makes Cybermen such a headache to deal with. Cybermen don't want anything. They have nothing against you or anyone else. They can't be frightened, or bribed, or softened. The one goal of their existence is to keep on existing. They've decided you're a potential threat to their continued existence so they'll kill you if they can. Nothing personal, you'll be pleased to know."

In the silence which followed the Doctor's words, everyone jumped at the high-pitched trill as the console communicator's display blinked into life. Kallon leaned forward tensely, snatching up the receiver rod and pressing it against one ear.

"Yes?"

He listened for a few seconds, then grimaced. He flicked the switch to put the communicator on speaker.

"Doctor? It's for you."

The Doctor frowned and took a step forward.

"For me?"

"Doctor!" came the rich, polished tone from the console. "I just wanted to check how much longer you're going to be. Frankly, I find I've exhausted the possible diversions on this planet. Are you almost finished?"

The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes to bring an impression of calm to his face.

"We're trapped on a disabled spacecraft, surrounded by Cybermen. I estimate the shields will run for another hour at the outside."

The Master paused only very briefly.

"Oh," he said.

"Any thoughts?"

There was another pause, slightly longer than the first. The silence in the room was profound as every occupant strained forward to hear what the Master might say.

"When you're dead," he said at last, "can I have your umbrella?"

The Doctor's eyes flashed darkly.

"Just couldn't bear not to be a part of it, could you? Just couldn't help trying to make things that little bit worse."

The Master's low chuckle filled the room like some liquid and tangible.

"Come now, Doctor. If this really is the end, you couldn't expect me to sit it out, could you?"

"If it's the end," the Doctor returned quietly, "I'll have the consolation that for the rest of your life it'll be nagging at you that you didn't get to cause it yourself."

"Ah, true. Well, with that in mind, I wish you good fortune. Now cheer up, Doctor. You don't need me to remind you that you've got yourself out of trickier spots than this!"

With a click the communicator went silent and all eyes turned expectantly to the Doctor. He returned their look balefully.

"Oh, don't start that. You're supposed to be big, strong soldiers, you look like lost ducklings."

They looked down at their feet and shuffled embarrassedly, all except Kallon who rested back in the padded pilot's seat, eyes on the ceiling, a pensive half smile on his face.

Alison spoke up nervously.

"Um, Doctor?"

He rounded on her, glaring, a snappish put-down on his lips, but saw her shrink back from him and stopped himself. He was still for a moment, the black mood draining from the set of his mouth and the lines at the corners of his eyes, and spoke quite calmly:

"Yes, Alison, what is it?"

"Why were the Cybermen buried in the mud? I mean, if they're so strong and smart?"

He gave her a little nod of acknowledgement, like a schoolmaster pleased with his pupil, as though the Master's interjection had never happened.

"Good question." He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. "I thought at first they were low on power, and the military presence here generated enough energy for them to absorb and walk again. But look at them." He jerked his head at the porthole, the impassive silver giants visible waiting patiently outside, oblivious to the soft falling rain. "They didn't get the power for a full-scale battle by skimming the output from that one little reactor. I think they buried themselves because they like it down there."

He held up a hand to forestall an imaginary objection.

"I say they like it. What I mean is, to the Cybermen, being buried under six feet of mud is as good a life as any. As I said, all they really want is to survive, and where could be safer than buried out of sight on an unpopulated planet?" He glanced at the silent, listening troopers. "Until you showed up and disturbed them, that is. That's the reason they're killing people, because you stumbled on their hiding place. They killed the garrison who built a base here, and then they re-buried themselves, disguising the holes as graves so that they could be right inside your barriers and you wouldn't even think to check what was underneath all that freshly-turned soil."

Kallon folded his arms and cocked his head on one side.

"Just a minute. You're saying we woke these Cybermen up. And the soldiers who vanished on the other side of the planet, they woke some others up? Just how many of these creatures are there?"

The Doctor responded solemnly, but not without a hint of dark relish in his eyes.

"Apparently, just to be on the safe side, they wiped out the entire sentient species that used to inhabit this planet when they arrived. At the least, there must be many thousands."

"And if war comes to this planet?"

The Doctor nodded slowly.

"Then they all wake up."

Kallon knitted his brows fretfully, nibbled delicately at one fingernail, then recollected himself and endeavoured to look unworried.

"So another reason why we have to get out of this. We have to warn our fleet, we have to stop them from landing here." He smiled thinly. "Perhaps you'll get your wish, Doctor. Perhaps there'll be no war here after all!"

The Doctor drew breath for a dismissive response, then held it. Absurdly, Alison felt hope flare up inside her just at the sight of him thinking, his eyes becoming distant, his lips creaking upwards into half a smile.

He rested his head back against the wall and laughed softly.

"Not to fret, everyone," he said. "I've got a brilliant idea." 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The temperature crept down remorselessly as the long night wore on, the mist thickening till it flowed like soup across the sodden ground. The dismal, rock-strewn landscape was still and silent, with not a breath of wind or a flicker of life, the bodies of the slain troopers lying twisted and motionless in the mud. Unheeding, unmoving, the Cybermen surrounding Kallon's shuttle stood like one more lifeless part of the terrain, but their dead black eyes were set with infinite patience on the craft's hull, and in their stillness was a constant, lethal readiness.

Minutes slipped past, and their acute, mechanically-enhanced hearing could detect even through the shuttle's energy screens the sound of voices rising in pitch and volume. If they recognised the sound as that of an argument then it was of no consequence to them. It did not threaten them, it could not affect their plans, so it did not matter. They waited, no thoughts in their minds but to complete this simple task and so make themselves safe. It was only when, with the energy screens still fully powered and active, the shuttle's ramp split open with a hiss, bright white light spilling out into the night, that their mechanically enhanced brains flared into life. At speeds beyond all human thought a thousand possible explanations and outcomes coursed through their predictive intelligence arrays at this unexpected event. Theories were sifted, ordered, assessed and discarded, all without the least sign of animation in their rigid posture or their blank, watchful eyes. They observed the progress down the ramp of four people with faceless detachment, even as their brains raged unseen in their mechanical search for an explanation.

The leader of the group waved a crumpled piece of white cloth. The Cybermen recognised and assimilated the fact that it indicated either surrender or a request for a truce. It meant nothing to them except a reduced likelihood that an attack was imminent. They adjusted their predictions accordingly and prepared to open fire.

The Doctor, flanked on one side by Alison and by Kallon and Wolff on the other, put the handkerchief away and quickly held up his other hand.

"Now I realise you're keen to kill us all, but consider this. There is a possibility, however slim, that what I'm about to say might be to your benefit, and you can always kill us in a minute or two once you've heard it."

The Cybermen assessed the logic of this, and a fraction of a second later one of them took a pace forward. The Cyberleader was indistinguishable from its followers, merely a central control for the group. The voice which issued from the narrow slit in its faceplate was a thin mechanical monotone:

"Speak."

The Doctor nodded, showing his relief for just a second by blinking quickly before he proceeded.

"Right. Now, I can understand your wanting to kill these men who've blundered in and woken you up. I've felt like it once or twice myself during the course of the night."

"They are irrational and violent," the Cyberleader intoned. "They will be eliminated."

"Quite. Or..." the Doctor said, as if suggesting an alternative restaurant, "You could let them go."

"They are irrational and violent," the Cyberleader repeated, every inflection identical to its previous sentence. "They will be eliminated."

"But consider. They would go back to their people and leave you in peace. You would climb back into your holes. Everybody will be happy."

"Humans are unpredictable." The Cyberleader stared out at them from its skull-like mask. "They manifest pride, fear, vengeance, aggression and other emotions which cause them to act against their own interests. If they escape, it is probable that they will return and attack us. They will be eliminated now."

"If they do not escape," the Doctor replied, "it is certain that others will come. They and their enemies are about to make this planet a battlefield. What will happen to you then?"

"They will be eliminated."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Your history tells you how dangerous they can be, fragile and emotional as they are. If you fight their armies here, many of you will be destroyed. Perhaps all of you."

"We will survive."

"Whereas," the Doctor persisted, "If you let them go, I give you my personal guarantee that no more will come to this planet."

"Your promises are of no validity."

He frowned.

"That was uncalled for. Now listen. You may not experience it, but you understand the concept of fear, don't you?"

There was the faintest pause before the Cyberleader responded.

"Yes."

"And how frightened do you think the humans are of you?"

He didn't bother waiting for an answer.

"Very, is the answer. They're very frightened of you. So think about it, if you let these men go, why would they or any others come here, once they've told their story? They are in the midst of a war, and their leaders are not fools. Why would they come here and start a second war, with you, over this worthless mudball of a planet? They will go somewhere else to fight, and you will be left to sleep in peace. Now you're the logical one so you tell me, is letting them go not a more rational course of action than killing them and waiting for more to arrive?"

Alison was dimly aware of a fierce pain in the palms of both hands, and discovered that she had her fists so tightly clenched that the fingernails had driven deep into the flesh. Unable to think clearly enough to release them, she could only stand there, the pain building steadily, as the Cyberleader stood in silence, apparently considering the matter, till she suspected the creature was genuinely spinning matters out to torment her.

Finally the silver giant spoke.

"It is rational. You may go."

There was an excited shuffle of heavy boots and of weapons being lowered from up the ramp behind them. Kallon and Wolff simultaneously gasped out a harsh breath of pent-up air. Alison had a sensation of hope leaping up inside her with a sting that was almost painful. The Doctor's sole reaction was to purse his lips briefly as though about to whistle. The calm self-assurance of his face never wavered.

"Thankyou. See how much simpler life can be when you're not trying to kill everyone?"

The Cyberleader didn't respond. With no spoken word of command, all of the Cybermen turned and headed away in the direction of the graveyard. The humans watched them go with a dizzying sense of relief.

The Doctor frowned his annoyance at Kallon clapping him on the shoulder.

"I knew there was a reason I decided not to have you shot! Well done, Doctor."

Now the Doctor reacted. He twisted his head around to stare at the young officer, his eyes stretching open, his cheeks sinking inwards as his skin went taut. His voice was a sibilant, high-pitched hiss.

"I distinctly told you not to call me that."

Alison hovered uncertainly, wishing she had asked at the time why the Doctor had been so insistent back on the ship that no one should address him by name. The sense of single-minded purpose and urgency had been so great that the command had gone unchallenged amongst all the others. Now, though, she was aware of the Cybermen's march coming to a frozen halt. The leader's head swivelling like a gun turret to stare back at them.

"Doc... tor?" 


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The Cybermen turned with fluid simultaneity like the wheels revolving in a watch. Alison gulped, transfixed by the row of empty eyes facing her, and was only half aware of the Doctor hissing into her ear:

"Ready Alison, when I say run..."

"Stay where you are, Doctor."

They both whirled to find Kallon, gun in hand, facing them with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about this, but we just got those silver things to head back to their holes, we can't have them starting a whole new fight now. Hope you understand."

"The Doctor is known to us," came the Cyberleader's thin, passionless voice from behind them, sending icy shivers up Alison's spine. "He is a danger to the Cyber-race. He will be eliminated."

Desperately Alison looked over at Wolff, and with a heavy, sinking sensation watched him take his own sidearm from its holster.

"Sorry, Miss," he mumbled, eyes lowered, his voice barely audible. "The Major's right. But we'll make sure you're safe."

And just as black despair was on the point of overwhelming her, a blazing fury welled up and blew it away. Almost beyond her own control, she heard her own voice rising in anger.

"You cowardly, worthless little slimeballs! The Doctor just saved your miserable lives and ths is what he gets for it?"

They both drew back a little, shifting their grip on their weapons uncomfortably. Alison glared from one to another. Kallon's handsome, tanned, immaculately shaved young face and Wolff's square, pasty, stubbly features, and saw the same uneasy look on both. The shaky determination of men who knew they were wrong, that they'd hate themselves later for what they were doing, but would do it anyway. Anything rather than face those dead-eyed metal masks and the cold, killing light a second time. She twisted her lip in contempt.

"Neither of you? Really? Neither one of you is going to lift a finger to help the man who risked his life to save you? You're going to turn him over to these monsters and you're both just going to stand there and watch what they do to him?"

She was distantly aware of the Doctor standing alongside her, hands clasped behind his back, looking faintly embarrassed by her outburst. A breathless sense of outrage and helplessness washed over her, and of sheer disbelief that this could really be it, that in a matter of seconds it could all be over, and that second a new voice thundered out:

"Down!"

She felt the Doctor's hand knotting tight about the collar of her jacket, thrusting her down to the earth, and an instant later a volley of silver energy blasts screamed over their heads. Crouching, she stared back at the unprepared Cybermen staggering as the volley flared and spat against their armoured metal chestplates. The next roar of noise followed close on the heels of the last and she twisted round the other way to stare open-mouthed at a stubby little four-wheeled vehicle which hurled itself down the ramp, the troopers parting to let it through only to cluster in the opening once more, weapons held ready for a fresh salvo.

Kallon and Wolff hurled themselves aside as the buggy skidded to a halt where they had been standing an instant before.

"Come on!" yelled the voice which had called out before.

Alison looked confusedly at the soldier, trying to think which one he was. He was in the standard uniform of padded dark material and bulky forcefield generators, and his square-jawed, unshaven appearance didn't mark him out from the others. But she didn't resist when the Doctor shoved her into the back seat and leaped in alongside her.

The engine screamed piercingly and the wheels span, spraying a thick coat of mud over Kallon, Wolff and the nearest Cybermen before the vehicle rocketed off across the camp. The hiss of the Cybermen's head-mounted energy weapons rose in a deadly crescendo and Alison crouched down, clenching her teeth, feeling the Doctor curled up beside her, his arm flung protectively over her shoulders. A second later they were in the clear, bumping and crashing over the uneven ground, the chilly moist air whipping at their faces as they straightened cautiously.

"You'll want to get back to your blue box, right?" the soldier shouted over the din of the engine.

"Yes, please," the Doctor said. "And can I say how much we appreciate the lift?"

"Oh, no problem," he called back, steering with one hand and turning in his seat to steal a look at them. "You saved our necks, we weren't going to let those robots or whatever they are have you now, were we?"

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully.

"Sounds so obvious when you put it like that."

They hurtled through the gap between huts and skidded to a halt at the doors of the TARDIS. Legs shaky and light-headed with relief, Alison struggled dazedly from the buggy, grateful for the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet. She looked at the soldier confusedly.

"Um... I'm sorry... but which one are you?"

There was an open, unaffected honesty in his broad face and pale eyes. His smile was nothing but genuine, with a trace of guilty embarrassment.

"Selby, Miss. Don't worry, I've just been standing at the back most of the time, I wasn't expecting you to recognise me."

"Will you be all right?" came the Doctor's voice from over her shoulder. "You haven't made yourself popular with your officers."

"Ah, it'll be okay," he said with a shrug. "Most of the other men are with me, and Wolff and Kallon aren't going to want it spread about that they tried to sell you two down the river. I reckon we'll all just compromise and keep our mouths shut. That's if we get out of this alive, of course," he added, glancing back in the direction of the spacecraft and the Cybermen.

"I wouldn't worry about that," the Doctor replied. "The Cybermen have no concept of grudges. Once they see we've gone, they'll go back to the original plan and head back to their holes in the ground."

Selby nodded trustingly.

"Fair enough. You'd better get going, then."

Finding no words, Alison expressed herself the only way she could think of, and flung her arms around his neck to kiss him on the cheek. When she pulled back he looked genuinely touched.

"Thankyou, Miss. It's been a while."

She could hear the Doctor unlocking the TARDIS door, and despite everything found herself suddenly reluctant to leave, feeling there was so much more to be said.

"Thankyou, Selby," she managed. "I hope you... I mean..."

The Doctor's gentle hand on her shoulder silenced her and drew her back into the TARDIS.

"Thankyou, Mr Selby," he said. "We both hope you get to see Earth again. Believe it or not, things do eventually get better."

She saw Selby give them a nod and an informal little salute before the doors closed and he was lost to view.

Standing at the console, his back to the doors, the Master didn't even bother to turn round.

"Ah, I see you managed to extricate yourselves after all," he murmured. "I don't know what all the fuss was about."

The Doctor gave him a frosty look.

"Sorry to disappoint you."

The Master's face remained hidden but his soft chuckle was audible.

"Really, Doctor. I'm wounded by the insinuation." He turned from the console, his dark eyes alight with implied secret knowledge. "Well, now. Are we on our way? Seen enough of this drab little planet?"

The Doctor eyed him seriously for a moment, and looked as if he was about to quiz him on just what was so funny, but finally just said:

"Yes, time to go. The sooner the Cybermen are convinced we've slipped the net, the better."

"Splendid." The Master strolled casually from the room. "I'll let you operate the controls by yourself. Doubtless you'll want to indulge in a little self-congratulation on the successful conclusion of this venture, and I'm not sure I have the strength to feign interest."

Alison and the Doctor watched him go, both afflicted by the nagging sense of indefinable unease which the Master was so skilled in evoking.

"Is he up to something or just messing with us?" she asked.

"Oh..." For a moment the Doctor looked too busy with his own thoughts to formulate an answer, but he quickly shrugged the mood away. "Probably nothing to worry about. He's just sulking because he didn't get anything to do this time."

He stabbed the monitor control with an air of brisk decisiveness and brought up an image of the Cybermen marching unhurriedly across the camp towards the grave markers they had left. The Doctor's face cleared, his eyes brightening, his lips even showing a trace of a smile devoid of scorn or irony.

"Look at that. Back they go, under the ground where they'll survive, and do no harm to anyone. And what's more, once the universe hears that they're here, no one will dare touch this planet ever again. The sky whales will cruise through the clouds, undisturbed, forever."

It was moments like this which reminded Alison why she continued to travel the universe with this infuriating, thoughtless, unbearable man, and she felt a warm, breathless feeling rise in her chest.

"Don't go all gooey on me," she said gruffly.

He very nearly laughed.

"Can't help it. After all, if the Cybermen have done a good thing, then maybe there's hope for everyone."

The Master followed a winding course through a bewildering sequence of roundel-walled passageways, deeper into the intestines of the TARDIS than anyone might penetrate by mere chance, and emerged in a cramped, cylindrical chamber dominated by a padded couch at its centre and a row of smaller steel cylinders built into the wall.

"Master?"

Firman's nervous voice emerged from where he sat crouched in the furthest recess of the room. The Master beckoned him wordlessly with a crooked finger and moved forward to inspect the thing that lay like a hospital patient on the couch.

"Is it all right?" Firman asked desperately. "I laid it out here just as you said. I put the inhibitors on its head, but it never showed any signs of waking up."

"Yes, yes, you've done well," the Master condescended. "I didn't suppose it would. All the scans showed that it was the most thoroughly dormant of its fellows."

His dark eyes roved along the prone form of the immobile Cyberman, the heavy metal clamps on its gleaming brow negating whatever chance there might have been of its becoming active.

"What now, Master?" asked Firman, head lowered in subservience. "Is it to be another servant like... like..."

"Like you?" The Master smiled easily. "No, not exactly. Let me show you something, my young friend."

He walked to one of the cylindrical metal shapes which studded the wall of the chamber and pressed a switch. The steel shell slid down by a foot to display a familiar face illuminated by a ghostly green light. Firman cringed back.

"It's you!"

"Mm, indeed," the Master said, gazing impassively at his own inert face enclosed by the gleaming glass tube. "Or I am him. Or a simulation of him. Or a continuation. It's debatable."

"Is he... is he dead?"

"Not quite, but if we were to remove him from this stasis field then the poison in his system would finish its work very quickly. The Doctor transferred my thoughts and memories into this android body, but to dispose of my original body would have been a little too close to murder for his delicate sensibilities. Hence the empty compromise of keeping it here frozen in time, as good as dead, for all eternity. Or so he thinks."

With a soft smile the Master returned to the Cyberman on the couch at the centre of the room and ran his fingertips up the length of its immobile body.

"The Cybermen are short on imagination, but one can't deny that in the field of organ replacement their technology is supreme. Now that I have this creature as raw material, I can replace the damaged organs of my original body, even parts of the brain, and yet with a little ingenuity keep my own personality and drives intact. A few weeks work, no more."

Firman trembled in superstitious awe as his Master's eyes darkened almost to black, his mechanical chest expanding with a simulated indrawn breath.

"Just a few weeks, my friend... and I shall be free. The Master will be born anew."

... To Be Continued


End file.
